This article is locked and loaded with information and statistics hitting you within seconds of the last fact. As a child of Generation Z, hardly remembering a time with a dial up connection, security breaches on our security blankets a.k.a. phones and laptops, are terrifying and and close to unfathomable. The Apple Case is a scary thought for most people who, like I am are touching an Apple product more hours in the day then not; but, what called me from this article was not a statistic but a quote from Chris Soghoian, the principal technologist at the American Civil Liberties Union. “The court left open the door to surveillance as long as the primary function of the device was intact. So as long as Amazon Echo can tell you what temperature it is or can still play music, that case seems to suggest that the government might be able to force Amazon to spy on you.” Mr. Soghoian’s words were used as main examples of government technological invasion in the past but this particular quote was intriguing, and a little alarming, because it talks about future or present privacy invasion in our homes that we are unaware of masked as a cool new gadget. The gadget to which he is referring is basically a personal home assistant that looks like a speaker. By calling out “her” name “Alexa!” she turns on and answers your questions such as what the weather is, how bad traffic is or can even order your morning coffee or five o’clock cocktail (Manjoo 15). Of course this gadget is cool, its basically one of the next steps to having robots do our laundry, which I thought we would have by now anyway. What is scary is when this “helpful” device becomes dangerous, just like the possibility of smartphone being able to be accessed by the government. If Apple does not stand their ground with this case, our iPhones and Apple products may become something we have to live without. With the release with the next new technological advance instead of being excited, we would be scared and disappointed that the government had to go and ruin a good thing. Even though the Amazon Echo is probably not listening to our conversations within our home, the fact that it is even a possibility, and a growing possibility in the world today, is so wrong. Unfortunately, we can not have the best of both worlds in this situation. The government can not have the tools they need to get one step closer to tracking and shutting down the organization that killed countless American citizens that day in San Bernardino if Apple chooses not to give up their privacy fight. But, if Apple were to give up their privacy fight, our technology would become another terrorist in this already scary world. Instead of getting excited about a new technology, we are worried that it can hear us or data mine us but when did the feelings of paranoia sweep the nation, and why did they?
Works Cited:
Manjoo, Farhad. “The Apple Case Will Grope Its Way Into Your Future.” The New York Times. The New York Times, 24 Feb. 2016. Web. 29 Feb. 2016.